all expenses, leaving an advantage to us of a house during _six months_,
at our choice to occupy ourselves or let again. Also it might have been
let for a year (besides other offers), only our agent expecting us in
September, and mistaking our intentions generally, refused to do so. Now
I will tell you what our plans are. We shall stay here till we can let
our house. If we don't let it we shall continue to occupy it, and put
off Rome till the spring, but the probability is that we shall have an
offer before the end of December, which will be quite time enough for a
Roman winter. In fact, I hear of a fever at Rome and another at Naples,
and would rather, on every account, as far as I am concerned, stay a
little longer in Florence. I can be cautious, you see, upon some points,
and Roman fevers frighten me for our little Wiedeman.

As to your 'science' of 'turning the necessity of travelling into a
luxury,' my dearest cousin, do let me say that, like some of the occult
sciences, it requires a good deal of gold to work out. Your too generous
kindness enabled us to do what we couldn't certainly have done without
it, but nothing would justify us, you know, in not considering the
cheapest way of doing things notwithstanding. So Bradshaw, as I say,
tempted us, and the sight of the short cut in the map (pure delusion
those maps are!) beguiled us, and we crossed the 'cold valley' and the
'cold mountain' when we shouldn't have done either, and we have bought
experience and paid for it. Never mind! experience is nearly always
worth its price. And I have nearly lost my cough, and Robert is dosing
me indefatigably with cod's liver oil to do away with my thinness....

Robert's best love, with that of your most

Gratefully affectionate
BA.